


Aftermath (Last One Standing)

by benvoliio



Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 13:34:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12133605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benvoliio/pseuds/benvoliio
Summary: a short exploration of benvolio's life after the feud (this is old)





	Aftermath (Last One Standing)

“Hi, my name’s Benvolio, and all my friends are dead.”

  
That was how he felt he should introduce himself to strangers now, he thought. Skip the small talk and the questions and the pity. Just a statement, plain and simple. His friends were dead. That was a fact.

  
“Hi, my name’s Benvolio, and I should be dead.”

  
Another statement. Another fact? Sometimes he thought it was, but not always. He didn’t really want to die.

  
“Hi, my name is Benvolio. Why am I not dead?”

  
That was wrong; that was a question. He had promised not to ask himself any more questions.

  
For months after that terrible week he had asked, over and over. Why? Why them? Why me? There were never any answers, and the questions hurt, so eventually he stopped. Nowadays he mostly avoided thinking at all. He read a lot of books.

  
He was sad, he supposed, but he’d always been a little sad. The very morning it had all begun he had been nursing troubled thoughts alone in the woods. He couldn’t even remember what they were now, though, and they seemed insignificant compared to what happened after. What lapse of judgement had led him to suggest the Capulets’ ball that day? Although he was certainly not opposed to a little bending of the rules, it had been foolish to suppose that such a move could lead to anything but disaster. Perhaps it had been optimism, a naive hope that the feud was truly ending, that Romeo and his peers of the same generation would be able to bring the two families together with love. In a way he’d been right. The three of them had been so full of youthful joy that night, so full of life, and now two were dead and the one left behind felt twice his age. And it was all his fault.

  
That said, he still didn’t want to die. He knew there were still people who loved him, his uncle, other family members, his dog, and the thought of inflicting the pain of losing a loved one on them was worse than the thought of living with it. And so he spent his days like this, reasoning with himself over and over, the same worries, the same arguments.

  
Eventually he hoped to nurture the little moments of happiness he felt when reading a book in the park or listening to the wind against his window at night into something more concrete, more stable. Until then, however, he would continue doing what he was apparently best at: existing, experiencing, surviving. Waiting.

  
And maybe one day, when the pain had faded and he had done his best with the time he had been given, the questions would arise once more, and he would be able to answer.


End file.
